OVERKILL TARNISHES PRINCE'S CROWN

After several months of rave reviews, his purple majesty Prince, and his band the Revolution, may be getting a case of the blues.

Prince's March 22 show at the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, N.Y., was far from "the most exciting and diverting pop spectacle we're likely to see for some time," which Robert Palmer of The New York Times reported after seeing the first of the six Coliseum dates on March 17.

After five months and 95 performances on the road, Prince and the band may be succumbing to fatigue and boredom. Also, Prince may be taking himself a bit too seriously, actually believing he oozes irresistible sexuality on stage, when in fact, his antics appear more comic than carnal.

The 24-year-old man-child who has replaced Michael Jackson and the Victory Tour as this year's "happening, must see" rock act finally visits South Florida on Easter Sunday at Miami's Orange Bowl. Perhaps the grind of the tour contributed to this week's announcement by Prince, through his management, that the Orange Bowl concert will be his last live performance for "an indeterminate number of years."

With an acclaimed and quite profitable film (Purple Rain) that won an Oscar for Best Sound Track Adaptation, an album (Purple Rain) that has sold 10 million copies and bore five hit singles and a concert tour that has been selling out sports arenas across the country, Prince's Purple Rain has turned into a Purple Reign. Everything's coming up roses, purple ones.

As fine as the film and record are, however, life on the road and performing the exact same show repeatedly may have begun to dull the live performances. By the time the man who has made purple America's color arrives in South Florida, Prince and the Revolution may be over. He has nothing left to prove -- to himself, anyway. He has won it and done it all.

Still, Prince Rogers Nelson is mortal. He proved that at the Coliseum two weeks ago.

The 18,000-seat hockey arena was sold out and many in the crowd had done exactly as the hottest ticket in town requested: "Wear something purple." Some spectators went the distance and wore purple hair. To put it mildly, this was an eager bunch.

When the lights went down, the audience stood up and was showered with purple confetti. Purple lights and smoke engulfed the stage. Prince and band appeared, zealously kicking into the punchy rocker Let's Go Crazy. He followed with Delirious, 1999 (sung very flat), Little Red Corvette and Take Me With U in rapid succession. Take Me With U included an inspired, aching guitar solo. But just when the music started to boil, the show lost momentum, buried under heaps of high tech production and high-mindedphilosophical and halfhearted erotic wanderings by his purple badness: "Do you know the difference between love and lust? God," Prince says.

"Do you know the meaning of temptation?" he asks.

Swiveling his hips and shaking his buttocks at the audience, he asks. "Do you have an a-- like mine? Am I qualified? Why don't you call me up?"

Opening act Sheila E., who can tantalize, sing and dramatically assault a set of timbales as well as anyone, also bogged down her set trying to play the vamp: "Do you want to play my timbales?"

Why don't Prince and Sheila E. stick to playing their songs? That certainly is Prince's strength. His grappling with sexual guilt, family relationships, lewd sex and his relationships with women are communicated better through song than through skits or discourse. During Darling Nikki when Prince attacks the stage floor, undulating upon it, it is unconvincing. We've seen it all on MTV. But when he sings, when he draws sustained, moaning notes from his guitar, he speaks with an assured, creative voice.

The show's great weakness is that Prince has forsaken the songs that made him so popular. They are buried under batteries of lights, waves of smoke and verbal wanderings. Some are drawn out and extended beyond the most tolerable dance club remixes.

Some of Prince's visual messages will be lost in the Orange Bowl. An erotic shower, a moment watching television, several scenes punctuated by blinding dark that made little sense in the Coliseum, will have people in the upper decks of the Orange Bowl squinting and scratching their heads.

Some of the lighting and effects are brilliant and beautiful and set the mood nicely for certain songs. And Prince has some serious points he is trying to make. The problem is basically excess. We get more than we need.

We get lightning and thunder and a conversation with God during which Prince utters perhaps the most revealing line of the night: "I know I should be good, but they dig it when I'm bad."

Perhaps it's really Prince that digs it when he's bad. That's how he first made his reputation. He was a 19-year-old Minnesotan when he first caught the unblinking eye by wearing lingerie onstage and singing erotic songs with the most explicit of lyrics.

OK, so maybe you gotta have a gimmick. But Prince has talent, too. He can play a wicked guitar solo and has a tender touch on the piano. A blind man can't see a man in women's underwear, but he can hear the message in the music.

Prince, who has left the transvestite garb at home this trip, keeping to tight black leather pants and his long purple frocks, tries so hard to be sexy and erotic that he becomes boring and predictable. If he wants a lesson on how to be sexy, he would do well to see a Bruce Springsteen or Rod Stewart concert.

We know the man runs deeper than he lets on. If he weren't sensitive and compassionate as well as leering and macho he wouldn't have donated thousands of dollars to Marva Collins' West Side Prep School fund in Chicago through the sale of Purple Circle tickets -- the best seats in the house -- at his shows. He would not be sponsoring a non-perishable food drive at the Orange Bowl.

All is not lost, however. The Revolution is a funky bunch that knows how to find a groove and keep it, and certain songs wrap themselves around spectators like an uninhibited dance partner in the dark.

Still, when Prince and the Revolution left the stage, the audience, which had greeted him with screams of praise and affection nearly two hours earlier, remained quiet. The audience was not starving for more. A sold-out arena was silent. And Prince waited 10 minutes before returning to the stage for his first encore: I Would Die 4 U and Baby I'm a Star. Both were performed with opening act Sheila E. and her band, members of the audience and actors from the film Purple Rain.

That inspired the crowd.

But Prince left the stage and kept the audience waiting again. Guitarist Wendy Melvoin returned to the stage and began playing the introduction to the song that is title to everything: Purple You-Know-What. And she played it some more and kept playing it. The rest of the band appeared and played it and kept playing it until one of the most beautiful songs featured in the movie and on the album became a hollow parody of itself.

The lighting and costumes, however, were spectacular. Perfect for television. Disappointing for rock 'n' roll.

(BU)

Prince tickets, at $17.50 plus $1.50 service charge, are available at all BASS outlets. Some tickets for Prince's Purple Circle, at $100 plus $1.50 service charge, also remain for the 8 p.m. show at the Orange Bowl. For ticket information and Grey Line Bus Service transportation to the Orange Bowl call BASS at 428-0917 in Broward County; 967-BASS in Palm Beach County.